British Prime Minister Sir Anthony Eden (left) greets French Premier Guy Mollet, as they begin a round of talks on the military cooperation in the Middle East where the union idea was floated

One of the Cabinet papers reads: “When the French prime minister, Monsieur Mollet, was recently in London, he raised with the Prime Minister the possibility of a union between the United Kingdom and France.”

At the time of the radical proposal France needed help.

And a union with its old enemy was seen as one way of averting a crisis.

It was in economic trouble and faced the escalating Suez crisis caused by Egypt.

The Middle Eastern country had just taken over the shipping canal which all of Europe’s trade with Asia went through.

Another plan was for the French to join the British Commonwealth and allow citizens of both countries to live and work easily between each other.

This was met warmly by the British Government but never became a reality because the next year France signed the Treaty of Rome with Germany and the other founding nations of the European Common Market.